[PuddleCheese]

Copyright exists to incentivize authors, artists, scientists, etc. to create original works by providing a temporary monopoly.

The arguments suggesting that people shouldn't benefit from their work on an individual level, and pointing to music piracy as an example of why we shouldn't try, strike me as arguments for general inaction and fatalism. Not sure what the goal is, there...

[matheusmoreira]

The goal is to get these people to face reality. The fact is we are in the 21st century, the age of information. Their creations are just data, and data can be copied, processed and transmitted worldwide at negligible costs. There is no controlling it.

The goal is to make them stop trying to control it. Because their attempts to control it are ruining computers for all of us. We already have harmful stuff like DRM on every chip because of these people. Platforms are getting more locked down, our freedom as users and programmers is decreasing. They will destroy free computing as we know it if this keeps going unchecked.

[PuddleCheese]

Because someone may see a version of reality where people are incapable of benefiting from their own work does not mean that it's by any means a settled issue or indicative of "Reality". I doubt these conversations would exist if it was. It is indeed the current year, but that doesn't mean that because things can be metaphorically distilled with false and reductionist equivalencies, that it should all be free for the taking to benefit a few people who outran regulation.

Regarding the concept of control, artists were first put in a defensive position by the individuals who started using their work without their consent, and who are trying exercise their own control over the artwork produced by others through monetizing outputs. Are only companies like Stability.AI, OpenAI, and Midjourney exclusively permitted to use and control the artwork of others, and allowed to charge for access to models which use this artwork without compensation or accreditation to the original authors? Are those artists computers not also being ruined? Do they not deserve representation?

We need to stop demonizing the idea that someone can benefit from their work because there are some companies that have fought to extend copyright for their own benefit.

Copyright REFORM is generally a much more supportable issue than the idea that everything should be free in perpetuity...

[wnkrshm]

I don't think this is freedom - as long as some company with a million time the resources that I have can train a better model, I'm only ever using the models someone with power gives me, no matter how small a device the model runs on.

Having larger models and adapting the weights is one thing but the innovation is mostly on the side of large entities.

[visarga]

> Copyright exists to incentivize authors

It's ideas (memes) copying themselves, making variations, evolving. Until now ideas could only jump from human to human, intermediated by various media. Now they can be unified and distilled into a model, a more efficient medium of replication for ideas, and more helpful in general because it can be adapted to new situations on the fly.